Dems toughen up for the race against McCain

Sen. Barack Obama's controversial pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, just won't seem to go away. Exercising his right to free speech and self-promotion, Wright did an interview with Bill Moyer on PBS last Friday and will be speaking to the NAACP in Detroit on Sunday and the National Press Club on Monday (That latter event is sold out though still open to credentialed media to cover, and cover it they surely will).

The stories arising from these appearances will likely add to the generally unpleasant tone of the Democratic race, which the US public is increasingly finding too negative in tone, according to a new report from the Pew Research Center. How that might effect either Clinton or Obama's prospects is not clear, though.

Public dissatisfaction with the tone of the Democratic race might seem to provide an advantage to McCain. But Wall Street Journal columnist Gerald Sieb argues that the tough fight between Obama and Clinton might simply make the ultimate winner stronger in the main election. Rather than the attacks of the Clinton and Obama campaigns against each other providing fodder for the GOP attack machine, they could help inoculate the ultimate winner.

Though the Democratic nominee won't have as much time as McCain to raise money for the election in November, the $10 million that Clinton raised in the 24 hours following her big win in Pennsylvania on Tuesday seems to indicate that there continues to be plenty of supporter money left to dig up. Political analysts continue to speculate, though, that Clinton, for example, faces some sort of imminent crisis as a result of campaign debt.

If a candidate looks capable of winning, and media commentators appear willing to concede that to Clinton again, the money will flow.